window on the world
Concept: The cloud is an intermediary between two worlds. Its airy lightness and gas give free rein to the architectural imagination, whilst its liquid composition returns it to earth. The cloud, by virtue of its ubiquity, is an intercessor between reality and imagination, between heaven and earth, light and gravity. The absence of a stable form, which characterizes the cloud, is a powerful concept that embodies, with its dreams, the designs for an ideal society. Playing on its metamorphoses, it can convey, in the mode of fable, a more political message without gravity. Here, the message focuses on water, from which clouds are constituted, by asking how humans will share this resource on earth. Philipe Potié
During a research trip to Cairo, Egypt in 2009 Lucy + Jorge Orta visited the Zabbaleen community who live on the garbage mountain of Moqattam. 65,000 people live off this refuse sorting, sifting, classifying the city’s waste: bottles, plastic jerry cans, fabric, cardboard. Reflecting on the sheer volume of the debris and in particular the plastic water container, they began assembling recycled water bottles. The resulting Cloud sculptures are the second phase of their project OrtaWater where the artists' research shifts from water distribution to that of the consumer object: on the one hand a vital commodity for the recycling community and on the other a disastrous pollutant on the environment. "Assembled with thousands of found water bottles, the resin contours of these new organic shapes create crevices and shadows of their former identity. Objects are incrusted into in these strange organic structures: remnants of a former household, a fisherman's boat, ladder, bicycle, chair. Clouds are reminders of the cycles and fragility of life.” Lucy Orta\
